The Happiness Journey: From Cincinnati to Huancayo

If you know me, you probably know about my obsession with happiness. I've done school projects on it, written papers about it, captured my pursuit of it...among many others. Happiness has always fascinated me. Why are some people genuinely happier than others? Is it merely because of attitude, perspective and thought? Or does it have to do more with opportunity, circumstance and fate? I think I have come up with an idea to answer this question for my own happiness journey and the millions of others on their own journey. 

My best friend and I started our own happiness project for this year in June. Our happiness project consists of commandments we are trying to live by and work on. Some people blog about their individual commandments, but I'm trying to keep my 12 personal commandments "personal", so things don't feel forced or unnatural. This blog is mostly private for now, until I embark on my journey in August, so I will have to share one personal commandment for you to understand the idea behind my happiness journey. 

Number 12: Make Footprints. Deciding to volunteer in Peru for 9 months is definitely a way to give back and create footprints, but I have decided it is going to be much more than that. My 9 month journey will not only consist of volunteering but documenting the happiness of Peruvians and what makes them happy. It's a rough idea for now...but I hope it will be titled something like, "The Happiness Journey: from Cincinnati to Huancayo."

I got the idea from an amazing documentary, "The Human Experience". I first saw the documentary during orientation for Fordham and it moved all of my classmates. What we all thought would be a boring movie we could sleep through, turned out to be one of the most poignant, thought provoking films I have ever seen. Two young men from Brooklyn put this film together when they ventured the streets of New York, Peru and Africa. They volunteered all across the world and asked the same questions to people they encountered: "What does life mean to you?" "What is your human experience?" The answers they heard from African lepers, disabled Peruvian children and the New York City homeless were all the same. No matter their situation, hardship or struggle they found beauty in their life. Just living life was beautiful to each and every one of them. After viewing the film, both men were at Fordham to speak and answer any questions. I didn't have any questions to ask them...only a few to ask myself. Why am I not doing that? Why am I not volunteering around the world and getting to know each person's view on life? The answer was simple. I am in college, I can't just volunteer around the world. Well, look at where I am right now :] 

"The Happiness Journey" will hopefully be sort of a documentary, asking strangers what makes them happy and what happiness means to them. I will start before my journey with strangers and close friends in Cincinnati and then ask all of the people I encounter in Huancayo, Peru. This project will definitely be an extension of my twelfth commandment, Make Footprints, and hopefully it will add to my own happiness project. Understanding what happiness means to my neighbors in Cincinnati and the impoverished people of Peru will enhance my own views of the human experience. And maybe I can provide a little evidence behind my favorite line...."oh you know, I am just livin' life :]

So for now, things are wonderful. If you happen to see a camera shoved in your face, hopefully this gives a bit of an explanation :] I will end with a quote that kind of sums up my twelfth commandment...

"The eye that doesn’t see does not do justice to the body. That’s why it’s there, that’s why you’re out there. And somehow you recognize that you’re a piece of this total life. You’re out on that forefront and you have to bring that back, somehow. And that becomes a rather special responsibility. It tells you something about your relationship with this thing we call life. It's you, it's us, it's we, it's life."